Browsing by subject term

We now have subject term indexing for most of our nonfiction
online book listings. See
this page for details on what
we're doing and how to use the subject term browser.
We would be very interested in hearing your comments
as we continue to develop the subject term browser and add
subject classifications.

Browsing by Call number

Books in a library are usually shelved by their call number, which arranges
books by their main topic. Because of this,
books with similar main topics will
often appear near each other when you browse, allowing you to find
multiple books on a subject that interests you.

Similarly, we also provide virtual shelves for online books filed by their
Library of Congress call numbers. (This and the Dewey Decimal
system are the most common call number schemes used. Dewey is more
commonly used in public libraries; Library of Congress is more commonly
used in larger research libraries in the US, and a similar system is
also used in Canada.) Library of Congress "call numbers" actually
start with letters, each of which represents a different topical area.

To start browsing, select a link below for the topical area that
interests you. If you
click on an "Overview" link, you will also see some of the
more specific topics in that area that are represented by call numbers
starting with two or three letters. For an even more detailed
breakdown (but without links to online books)
see this page from the Library of Congress.

Notes

Most of our books have call numbers and subject terms, but a small
portion of them (about 1/6 at present) do not have call numbers, and
a lot of our fiction books (and some of our more obscure nonfiction)
do not have subject headings.
Rare books, children's books, and
old popular fiction that's no longer popular are more likely not
to have a these things, compared to
other kinds of books. You can look for books without call numbers
or subject terms
in our author and title listings, however.

In physical libraries, books have only one call number, which
determines where they get shelved. In theory,
it should be possible to assign multiple call numbers to online books,
so that they can be found under multiple topics in the "virtual shelves".
As a practical matter, though, we can only
support one call number per book at present. We try to choose
ones that put books in their most relevant category. For more precise
categorization, try our subject term browsing.